When Compartmentalization Fails
by tazlvr2001
Summary: A quick one shot following "A Slave of Duty" in Emily's POV. She talks with JJ on the plane coming home.


**Just a quick little one shot. I sat down to work on the new chapters for "They Meet Again" and "Finally Together" and I couldn't get this out of my head so I figured that I would just write it. **

**This is my take on what could have happened on the plane ride home in Emily's POV.  
**

* * *

I was the last one to enter the plane after our last case. It affected me hard. Not only were pulled away from the reception after Haley's funeral – which let me say was just wrong. I can't believe that the witch that calls herself Strauss listed our team as available for that day. For God's sake, the man we stood by and supported for years had just buried his ex-wife and was now faced with raising his five year old son all by himself. Didn't he deserve to have us with him to support and help him through this?

As if just getting called away on a case is not enough, our victims are all brunette women who are financially comfortable. _Perfect!_ It sucks to fit the victimology. No matter how hard you try to compartmentalize, it never works. You start to imagine the victims as being you, or their homes as being your home. There is no way to stop the morphing of those images.

That the only reason that you can give for your actions. Hotch. Haley. Jack. Those women. It all just became too much to compartmentalize and you broke.

_--_

_The front door was broken down to the latest victim's house just in time to save her. I watched as Rossi led her out of the house. My leg made contact with our Unsub and he fell to the floor. The next thing I knew, I was leaning over him. I knew that Morgan was standing behind me, but I didn't get up. Instead, I placed my left and close to his throat and I held my gun in my right hand and aimed it at his head. _

_At the time I didn't even realize that I was speaking until my ears heard the words that had come out of my mouth in slow deliberate sentences:_

"_Fantasy's over.  
Is that what you did to them?  
You hit them to shut them up and then forced them to play along with your sick delusion."_

"_I loved them," the Unsub dared responding. _

_Oh did I have to fight the urge to just squeeze my fingers that were on his throat. But I didn't. Instead I continued on with my words:_

"_Huh. You're finally going to meet your soul mate, Joe - in prison.  
Only you're not going to be able to push him around like you did those women.  
And when he comes for you  
in the middle of the night  
when you're least expecting it  
You do me a favor…  
Play along"_

_I rejoiced inwardly as the understanding of my words reached his mind. I almost felt like releasing one of those evil laughs you hear in the movies, but I held back and went outside to make sure that our victim got settled into the ambulance._

_--_

So now I sit here on the plane, looking out the window. Externally I show my usually calm, compartmentalized self, while internally I am still fighting to arrange those compartments.

"You okay?"

JJ. I heard her walking towards me before she said anything. She always seems to know when I am having a hard time dealing with a case. I nod my head, refusing to look at her and hoping that she would just go back over to her card game with Reid.

But, she doesn't. Instead, she sits in the chair across from me. "I heard about what happened at the house."

I continue to stare out the window, wishing that she would just leave me alone and let me deal with this all on my own.

"Emily, it is alright if you are having trouble dealing with everything that's happened. Compartmentalization doesn't always work."

Busted. I close my eyes trying to will the boxes in my mind to organize themselves. It doesn't work. After what I could only guess is about five minutes, I take a deep sigh. "I could see myself in the victims."

I hear her shift in her seat. She must have leant forward because when she speaks next, her voice is closer. "That happens a lot Emily. Unfortunately, most of our victims are women. You'll always be affected by the victims with brown hair just like I'll always see the resemblance in women with blonde hair."

"It's not just hair," I say to her.

"What do you mean?" I know that she is aware of the answer, but to her credit she's getting me to talk about my feelings toward this case – and that is definitely an odd occurrence.

"It's more than hair." I turn my head to face her. I can see the friendly compassion in her eyes, her motherly instincts kicking in. "It's the hair, the age. God JJ even their financial status is similar to mine."

I watched as she took a deep breath and placed a comforting hand on my knee. She didn't say anything. Somehow she knew that just being there to listen to me was just what I needed. So, I continued. "When Morgan and I went into that house the first day of the case, I put myself in the victim's place describing how I would have handled the situation. I can't describe it, JJ, it just became really personal. Maybe it was because we got pulled away from Haley's funeral."

"It does suck that we had to leave Hotch there," JJ admitted.

"We all knew that it was going to be too late to catch the Unsub before he attacked and killed his next victim. We could have waited until the next day. Morgan could have tried to push our departure."

"Emily, there was no way that we could have known if getting there earlier would have helped or not. You know that the sooner we can work on the case, the better."

I let out a deep sigh and turned to look out the window. "I know. I just…I keep hearing Hotch's eulogy at the cemetery and picturing his face when he looked over at us after Morgan told him that we had a case. He looked so…lost. We all knew Haley. We all listened to their last conversation. We heard Foyet shoot her, and we are _expected_ for it not to affect us, to fully accept being pulled away from her funeral and just…move on to the next case." A tear escapes from my eye and I quickly wipe it away.

"Emily, I don't believe that they expect us to be able to move on so quickly from everything with Foyet at all. If they weren't so adamant on us getting their immediately or if another team was available, we would never have had to leave Hotch's side. We will all have cases where the situations all become too personal for us to deal with. Morgan had that cop killer case in New York. Reid had that case in Miami with Adam and Amanda. Rossi had the case with those three children in Indianapolis."

"And you?" I turned back to face JJ.

She nodded. "Just before you joined the team. Three missing high school soccer players from North Mammon."

"Close to your home town," I noticed.

"Yeah, my Aunt actually sent one of the mothers to Quantico to plead for us to take the case. I saw myself in those girls. I was them fifteen years ago. When we land, just go home and draw yourself a nice relaxing bath. Have a glass of wine and just let yourself feel all of those emotions. Don't hold back. Don't try to lock them away, because they will just eat you up from the inside out."

"We should check up on Hotch and see how he is doing," I argued.

"Rossi's taking care of it. Go home and take care of yourself. You can catch up with Hotch tomorrow."

I smile at JJ and give a small tilt in my head to resemble a nod. "Thank you," I tell her.

"You're welcome. We are a family here Emily, in our own screwed up, dysfunctional way. Don't let yourself get to this point again, talk to us. We're always willing to help."

"I know JJ. Thank you."

* * *

**Sooo... What do you think?**


End file.
